Vehicles operating in an autonomous mode (e.g., driverless) can relieve occupants, especially the driver, from some driving-related responsibilities. When operating in an autonomous mode, the vehicle can navigate to various locations using onboard sensors, allowing the vehicle to travel with minimal human interaction or in some cases without any passengers.
Motion planning and control are critical operations in autonomous driving. The goal of autonomous driving is to plan and navigate the roads from a starting location to a destination location following the traffic rules and avoid any collision as much as possible. However, under certain circumstances, an accident or collision is inevitable due to the unforeseen or sudden change of the driving environment. Typically, conventional vehicles would slow or stop the vehicles as soon as possible while maintaining the same heading direction forwardly under such scenario. However, such an approach may not be the best way to cause the least damages.